PANO – The authorities of Nhu Thanh district, Thanh Hoa province on June 28th held a ceremony to receive the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism’s certificate recognizing Hai Van blast furnace in Hai Van commune as a national historical relic and the decision on restoring and promoting the relic’s values.

In 1949, the Party Central Committee and President Ho Chi Minh instructed military and weapon service to build a NX1 blast furnace in Dong Muoi valley in Nhu Xuan district (present Nhu Thanh district) to produce materials for making weapons to serve the resistance war against French invaders. The second blast furnace named NX2 with smaller capacity was shortly built. Within two years, the two blast furnaces provided around 200 tons of cast iron for engineers of Zone 4 to manufacture weapons for battlefields.

Certificate presented to the relic

However, these two blast furnaces were discovered and bombarded by the enemy. Having surveyed the field, leaders of the Department of Military Equipment and Weapons made a daring decision to build another blast furnace in a cave, around 2km away from the former ones. Thanks to the iron will and creativeness of engineers and workers, NX3 (later Hai Van) blast furnace with capacity of 8.3 cubic meter was successfully installed in Dong Muoi cave, producing 3 tons of cast iron per day. In late 1953 and early 1954, NX3 blast furnace contributed more than 400 tons of materials for making grenades, mines, mortars, pans, and pots for battlefields.  

The NX3 was renamed Hai Van resistance blast furnace after Vietnamese troops and people won over the enemy in a battle in the Hai Van Pass.

On the occasion, the Thanh Hoa provincial People’s Committee decided to finance approximately VND 25 billion to restore the historical relic.

Translated by Tran Hoai